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World Trade Center cross beams moved to permanent museum home

World Trade Center construction workers hold hands and pray at a ceremony Saturday in New York.
(Mark Lennihan, The Associated Press
)

NEW YORK — A cross-shaped steel beam found amid the wreckage in the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack was a symbol of hope for many working on rescue and recovery there, so much so that the construction worker who discovered it believes he stumbled on to a miracle.

"I saw Calvary in the midst of all the wreckage, the disaster," Frank Silecchia recalled Saturday. "It was a sign . . . that God didn't desert us." The 2-ton, 20-foot-high T-beam has now become a religious relic. It was taken from its temporary post near a church Saturday and lowered 70 feet down into the bowels of where the twin towers once stood to become part of the exhibit at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum.

But for all the religious fervor surrounding the cross, it will become part of the museum because of its history at ground zero, not because of its Christian symbolism, museum officials said.

"It's powerful because it provided comfort to so many people — it is a part of the history of the space," said Joe Daniels, president of the memorial foundation.

He said steel girders made into other makeshift crosses, Stars of David and possibly some Eastern religious symbols would also become part of the museum, which will open in 2012 and will be primarily underground at the site. The memorial will open this year, on the 10th anniversary of the attack.

"It's important to have these artifacts that reflect the history, to remember, to see how people coped," he said.

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For the Rev. Brian Jordan, the Roman Catholic priest who led the effort to preserve the cross, it is very much a symbol of Christianity — sacrifice, loss and renewal, he said. Jordan celebrated Mass under the cross for weeks — and members of many different religions took part.

In 2006, the cross was lifted from the site and transplanted to a spot nearby at the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York City, St. Peter's.

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